In an interview on the July 21 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter accused liberals of “trying to fake a belief in God” in order to court religious voters and claimed that by purportedly not challenging the title of her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, June 2006), liberals have “admitted they are godless.” Further, Coulter and co-host Gordon Robertson repeated many of the false and misleading claims regarding evolutionary theory that appear in her book and have been debunked by Media Matters for America.

In an introductory segment that aired prior to the interview, CBN senior correspondent Paul Strand reported that Coulter, in her new book, asserts that “anti-religious liberalism has actually become, in itself, a religion.” Strand went on to note that she “explains how abortion is its sacrament; Roe v. Wade its holy writ; public school teachers its clergy; and Darwinism its liberal creation myth.”

Robertson conducted the subsequent interview with Coulter, in which he noted that she has “been taking it on the chin” as of late and described the strategy of those criticizing her as “the old, you know, 'If you can't attack the message, go after the messenger and hope to win that way.' ”

When Robertson remarked that Democrats do not like to be labeled the “godless party,” Coulter claimed that liberals have “admitted” that she is correct in labeling them “godless” because liberal criticism of her book has focused on her attacks on 9-11 widows: “I think I would have noticed if somebody called me godless,” she said. “But I really haven't heard people protest about that. No, they're upset about what I say about the Jersey Girls. ... So I think we are all on record now: Officially, liberals have admitted they are godless and don't even mind it.” Coulter went on to say that Democrats often discuss how to attract the “believer vote,” but that "[t]he way to do that ... is to be a believer and not to keep trying to fake a belief in God."

Turning to the two chapters in Coulter's book devoted to Darwinism, Robertson marveled at how “effective” her arguments are in disproving the theory of evolution. “I thought I was fairly informed,” Robertson said. “But I confess, your book taught me new arguments that I hadn't had in my arsenal before.” Coulter described evolutionary theory as a “myth” and part of liberals' “religious faith” and, in the ensuing discussion, repeated several of the “misleading claims, pseudo-scientific arguments, distortions of evolutionary theory, and outright falsehoods” recently debunked at length by Media Matters. These include:

• Biological evolution cannot explain how the eye was formed.
• The “Cambrian explosion” disproves the theory of evolution.
• No evidence exists of transitional species.

Robertson joined Coulter in falsely arguing that “there's no fossil record of transitional species,” and even repeated her highly misleading claim that the fossil record of bats supports this argument.

From the July 21 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club:

ROBERTSON: Well, last year, Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean called Republicans a white, Christian party. Our next guest says many liberals have embraced yet another religion entirely. Paul Strand explains.

[begin video clip]

STRAND: By the time the 1992 Democratic Convention rolled around, when broken down by religion, the largest block of delegates was not religious at all, and identified themselves as --

GERAULD DE MAIO: Seculars, self-identified seculars. Defined as atheist, agnostics, and those with no religious preference.

STRAND: Social scientist Gerauld de Maio and Louis Bolce have been tracking this trend. Turns out, in every presidential election since 1992, about 70 to 80 percent of the secular liberals vote for the Democratic candidate. And what de Maio and Bolce say the media miss is how many of the Democrats, secularists, and liberals have come to actually loathe religious conservatives. For instance in 2000:

LOUIS BOLCE: Thirty-five percent of Gore's, Al Gore's total vote among whites came from people who intensely dislike evangelical Christians.

STRAND: Ann Coulter's new book Godless looks at how this contempt for people of God, and especially all they believe in, has taken secularists and liberals to an ironic place. Their anti-religious liberalism has actually become, in itself, a religion. Coulter explains how abortion is its sacrament; Roe v. Wade its holy writ; public school teachers its clergy; and Darwinism its liberal creation myth.

[end video clip]

ROBERTSON: Well, Ann Coulter joins us now live from New York to talk about her new book, Godless. Ann, you've been taking it on the chin, here. I thought we sort of had the corner on the market for being beat up by the press. But you seem to have taken your own lumps lately. How do you feel about all that?

COULTER: Happy to deflect some of the heat from you.

ROBERTSON: Well, I guess -- come on in, the water is warm.

COULTER: Well, as you know, we kind of think it's macho as Christians, since it was predicted we would be hated.

ROBERTSON: You've taken a strong stand for your faith in this book. You know, are you saying that's the reason that there seems to be -- I mean, there seems to be a lot of venom directed your way these days?

COULTER: Yes, yes. But like I say, Christians think that is macho.

ROBERTSON: All right, well, you seem to be able to take it. The Democrats these days seem to be taking a lot of steps to try to open themselves up to Christians. They don't like the label, “the godless party.” You know, Howard Dean has made some missteps in his efforts. [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] seems to be doing well with it. What do you think of their efforts so far?

COULTER: Well, first of all, I do want to point out that they really haven't complained about the title of my book. I think I would have noticed if somebody called me godless. But I really haven't heard people protest about that. No, they're upset about what I say about the Jersey Girls. But, oh, yeah, OK, we're all godless. So I think we all are on record now, officially liberals have admitted they are godless and don't even mind it. Maybe they are saying who-less. And as for their attempts to win believers over, they know they need the votes of Christians and you always hear them talking about how, “Gosh, how do we get the believer vote?” The way to do that I think is to be a believer and not to keep trying to fake a belief in God. Their results have not been very impressive in the past, as when Howard Dean was running for president and proposed to reporters, you know, “Let's talk religion,” and one of the reporters asked him to name his favorite part of the New Testament, and he cited the Book of Job. So they really got to start placing the Book of Job in the correct testament to appeal to actual believers, I suspect.

ROBERTSON: You spend a lot of time on Darwinism in your book, and I think that's one of the reasons you're getting so much heat here is how effective your arguments are. I thought I was fairly informed. But I confess, your book has taught me some new arguments here that I hadn't had in my arsenal before. And I congratulate you for it. I think your book is a tour de force. It's something I recommend to everyone to read.

COULTER: Thank you. And by the way, they haven't argued with me directly on that either. I mean, the left really hates me. But no one seems to want to argue about the Darwinism. I mean, it's exactly like my defense of Joe McCarthy a couple of books back in Treason. Liberals build up this 50-year myth on Joe McCarthy in one case, on Darwinism in the other. And you know, I come along and say it's all a crock, and no one wants to argue back. If you read a single paragraph from my book in the Darwin chapters in a public school, the teacher would be fired -- would be banned from ever teaching again. But I go on -- it's about a third, a quarter of the book -- and no one wants to argue directly about it because it is a myth. It is part of their religious faith. There is no evidence for it -- not the evidence Darwin expected to find. It is what scientists refer to as a pseudoscience. There is nothing they will accept to disprove Darwin's theory. It's like tarot-card reading.

ROBERTSON: But isn't that why you are getting attacked? It's the old, you know, “If you can't attack the message, go after the messenger, and hope to win that way.”

COULTER: I suspect that is part of it because Darwinism is obviously very important to liberals. They bring lawsuits whenever anyone mentions in a high school biology class, for example, the Cambrian explosion, where every animal, phyla appear in the blink of an eye -- no evolutionary process -- there it is, including the eye by the way, which they've never figured out how the eye could have evolved by natural mutation -- random mutation, and natural selection. Well, there it is -- the fossil record disproves it. But we can't mention the Cambrian explosion or the Chinese fossil bed that appeared before that. I mean, what you see over and over again with species is not the gradual change from one species to another, or even to create an all-new, novel biological form. You see a species appearing fully formed, minor adaptations for whatever it is -- a hundred million years -- and then poof, totally disappearing. Almost like there was a flood or something.

ROBERTSON: You're right. On a scientific basis, there's no fossil record of what transitional species or even transitional -- you know, how did we get a bat wing? There is no pre-bat wings in the fossil record.

COULTER: Right.

ROBERTSON: And we just seem to ignore that, conveniently.

COULTER: Well, they have little stories about how a bear fell into the ocean and became a whale. But we don't have the actual bear and the whale. And also, since they often play a sophistical game with this, they have species that could, in theory, be a transition between one animal and another. But as I say in the book, this is like saying, you know, Elton John looks like Janet Reno. Therefore Elton John gave birth to Janet Reno. They can't prove the descendent relationship. All they can do is find an odd-looking duck that looks like another duck. And in fact, the ones they have maintained were transitional species -- because other fossils will appear that disprove it -- tend to fall away. What you ought to have under the theory of random mutation and natural selection is a whole lot of transitional species or animals, far more than you have of the final product. In fact, there really never is a final product because we're always moving on to something better. You know, humans ought to be sprouting new wings and tails as we speak.

ROBERTSON: And you also, I will, I've got -- they are telling me we're out of time. I will end on this. You also point out, very cogently, that if same-sex beings tried to mate under natural selection, they should be automatically eliminated from the gene pool.

COULTER: That's right.

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

COULTER: Fortunately, the religion of liberalism believes in miracles, so they can hold together completely contradictory beliefs at one time.

ROBERTSON: So you can be biologically born that way, but at the same time the genetic code seems to indicate you would be automatically selected away --

COULTER: Right.

ROBERTSON: -- in the survival of the fittest just for the mere fact you do not reproduce.

COULTER: That's right.

ROBERTSON: Anyway, Ann, wonderful book again, thanks for being with us. If you need friends while you're being beat on, just, you know where to call.

COULTER: Thank you, great to be here.